David Hilton David's Unexpected Advent

This is Penny, designated communicator for David while he goes through his Unexpected Adventure (for some reason the title cut out after "advent"...)

It has seemed over the years that David's Achilles's Heel is his lungs. Any cold was apt to turn into bronchitis, and bronchitis sometimes turned into pneumonia. So this fall, after volunteering for the 40th year in a row at the Common Ground Fair, he considered putting his name "on the board" to go out west to dispatch for fires, as he does each fire season, but he kept saying he just wasn't feeling up to snuff... So when he was diagnosed in early October with pneumonia, it was a little surprising, because he hadn't gone through his usual respiratory decline, but certainly plausible. But then, two months later, when he was coughing more than ever, and unable to sleep lying down, we lucked onto a different doctor who suspected a heart problem. Long story short (imagine a circuitous path from test to test and dr. to dr.) he was finally diagnosed as having a damaged mitrial valve (his heart went "k-whoosh, k-whoosh" instead of "lub-dub, lub-dub) AND two clogged arteries... AND some enlarged lymph nodes that need a second look.

On January 9, David had open heart surgery at CMMC, performed by Dr. Paul Weldner and emerged with a successfully repaired valve and a double by-pass.